Events in the year 2019 in

Vatican City Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (; ), is a Landlocked country, landlocked sovereign state and city-state; it is enclaved within Rome, the capital city of Italy and Bishop of Rome, seat of the Catholic Church. It became inde ...

Incumbents

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

Francis Francis may refer to: People and characters *Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church (2013–2025) *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Francis (surname) * Francis, a character played by YouTuber Boogie2 ...

Cardinal Secretary of State The Secretary of State of His Holiness (; ), also known as the Cardinal Secretary of State or the Vatican Secretary of State, presides over the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia. Th ...

Pietro Parolin Pietro Parolin (, ; born 17 January 1955) is an Catholic Church in Italy, Italian Catholic prelate who has served as the Holy See, Vatican's Cardinal Secretary of State, Secretary of State since 2013, and has served as a member of the Council o ...

* President of the Pontifical Commission:

Giuseppe Bertello Giuseppe Bertello (born 1 October 1942) is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church, a cardinal since 2012, who was President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and President of the Governorate of Vatican City State from Octob ...

Events

* 4 March –

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

announces the Vatican's historical archives of

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

's pontificate (1939–1958) will be accessible to scholars next year, effective 2 March 2020. * 26 March – The all-female board of Women Church World, a monthly supplement in the ''

L'Osservatore Romano ''L'Osservatore Romano'' is the daily newspaper of Vatican City which reports on the activities of the Holy See and events taking place in the Catholic Church and the world. It is owned by the Holy See but is not an official publication, a role ...

'' (the

daily newspaper), resign citing a campaign to discredit them and put them "under the direct control of men". * 21 April – Pope Francis speaks words of solidarity to the Christian community of Sri Lanka, lamenting that the attacks have wrought grief and sorrow. * 26 April – Pope Francis meets with

Milorad Dodik Milorad Dodik ( sr-Cyrl, Милорад Додик, ; born 12 March 1959) is a Bosnian Serb politician currently serving as the 8th president of Republika Srpska since 2022, a position he previously held from 2010 to 2018. He also served as ...

, head of the joint presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina. They discuss bilateral relations, the presence of the Catholic community, coexistence and reconciliation, and the economic and social challenges facing Bosnia and Herzegovina. * 10 June – The Vatican issues a teaching instruction, ''Male and Female He Created Them'', which criticizes the theory of

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

as being more complex than the binary division of sexes. The document draws criticism from

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

groups. * 28 June – The Vatican asks China's communist government to stop intimidating

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

clergy who want to remain unequivocally loyal to the pope and refuse to sign ambiguous official registration forms. * 8 July – Pope Francis names for first time in Vatican history female members of the

Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life The Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, formerly called Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (DICLSAL and formerly CICLSAL; ), is the dicastery of the Roman Cu ...

. * 11 August – Pope Francis recalls the 70th anniversary of the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

after his Sunday afternoon

Angelus FIle:Jean-François Millet (II) 001.jpg, ''The Angelus (painting), The Angelus'' (1857–1859) by Jean-François Millet The Angelus (; Latin for "angel") is a Catholic devotion commemorating the Incarnation (Christianity), Incarnation of Jesus ...

address. The 1949 conventions concern the treatment of the sick, the wounded, prisoners, and civilians in war. * 20 August – Holy See–Vietnam relations: ** The two sides meet in the Vatican and discuss

bilateral relations Bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which is activity by a single state or jointly by multiple states, respectively. When ...

, ecclesial life and the future visit of Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal

. The Vietnam — Holy See Joint Working Group first met in 2009.

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

, a Communist nation of 97 million, is 7% Catholic. * 17 September –

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Bartholomew (born Dimitrios Archontonis, 29 February 1940) is the current Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople since 1991. In accordance with his title, he is regarded as the ''primus inter pares'' (first among equals) in the Eastern Orthodox ...

meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican. In his brief remarks, Patriarch Bartholomew talks about the value of

synod A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word '' synod'' comes from the Ancient Greek () ; the term is analogous with the Latin word . Originally, ...

ality in the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

. * 13 October – At

Saint Peter's Square St. Peter's Square (, ) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the pope, papal enclave and exclave, enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo (rione of Rome), Borgo. Both t ...

, Pope Francis canonizes the 19th-century Anglican convert

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English Catholic theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet. He was previously an Anglican priest and after his conversion became a cardinal. He was an ...

, who was a unifying figure in both the

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

and

Catholic churches In the Catholic Church, a parish () is a stable community of the faithful within a particular church, whose pastoral care has been entrusted to a parish priest (Latin: ''parochus''), under the authority of the diocesan bishop. It is the lowest ecc ...

. * 28 October – Pope Francis officially renames the ''Vatican Secret Archive'' to the ''

Vatican Apostolic Archive The Vatican Apostolic Archive (; ), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive (; ), is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope, as the sovereign of Vatican City, owns the material held ...

''.

Deaths

* 29 August:

Achille Silvestrini Achille Silvestrini (25 October 1923 – 29 August 2019) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served in the Vatican diplomatic corps, either in Rome or abroad, from 1953 to 1990, and later as Prefect of the Congregation for the O ...

, 95, Italian-born Vatican diplomat and Roman Catholic cardinal, Prefect of the

Congregation for the Oriental Churches The Dicastery for the Eastern Churches (also called the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches), previously named the Congregation for the Oriental Churches or Congregation for the Eastern Churches (), is a dicastery of the Roman Curia responsible f ...

(1991–2000)

References

{{Years in Vatican City

2010s in Vatican City Years of the 21st century in Vatican City

Incumbents

Events

Deaths

See also

References